The skatepark advocacy group in Tybee, Georgia not only offered printed t-shirts as a gift for a donation but they enlisted a local clothing store to help them distribute the soft goods. It’s a great way to raise awareness and target people who are prepared to spend more than $10 for a shirt, particularly if it’s for a good cause.

Skateboarders see parking lots, street curbs and stairwells differently than most. Instead of concrete and asphalt, they envision ollies, 50-50s and kick flips.

But, it is often illegal to bring these visions to life.

That is why the county needs a public skate park, said local skater Adam Williams, 26.

“It would be better for everybody,” Williams said.

The retail chain has been selling locally designed T-shirts to raise funds for the effort. In addition to the downtown Broughton Street location, the shirts are being sold at stores across the country and in Europe.

All of the proceeds from the sale of the $35 T-shirts go toward the park.

“It’s basically like putting $35 in a donation bin, but you’re getting a T-shirt out of it,” said Williams, who submitted the proposal to his boss for the T-shirt sale.

The money raised will go into a fund being managed by Chatham County Skate Park Supporters, a nonprofit Williams helped establish.

There are five different shirts available, all featuring hand-drawn illustrations by current or former Savannah residents.

Savannah skater and store employee Patrick Byrnes was the artist behind one of the shirts. It features some long nailed reptilian hands breaking a skateboard in half with the words “Broken Dreams” written above.

The meaning is clear, Byrnes said. It refers to those who stand in the way of the effort.

“They are taking away our dreams of skateboarding,” Byrnes said.

The nonprofit group is actually an offshoot of a former organization established to raise funds for a skate park on Tybee Island. That plan was effectively killed about four years ago after some residents and city officials opposed it.

In an attempt to help spur the new group’s fundraising efforts, Chatham County commissioners in April gave tentative approval to build the park at Lake Mayer.

The location is far from a done deal, however.

The area is already congested with the hockey rink, basketball courts and a playground, said Al Lipsey, Chatham County’s deputy director of public works and park services. And there are plans to expand the parking lot and playground, Lipsey said. Those issues will have to be considered whenever the skateboarding group presents its formal plan.

“I’m not saying we’re not interested in doing it,” he said. “I just want to take a look at those other things we would like to do.”

Meanwhile, a privately run skate park in Windsor Forest, Woody’s Proshop and Park, offers skating opportunities seven days a week.

Owner Fabio Silva said he has a full-time job as a self-employed programmer and runs the skate park as a labor of love. He supports the fundraising effort because another park will generate more interest in the sport.

“I think it’s great,” he said. “Skateboarding is one of those contagious type of things.”

That’s usually true, Jennzen. It’s certainly true that skateparks don’t get built without a group of activists making a strong case for them. However, there are still lots of opportunities for skateparks to turn out poorly under the best intentions. Sometimes people don’t know what questions to ask, where to put the park, or think that a few ramps will do until a permanent skatepark can be built. These things happen a lot…and it’s nobody’s intention to do badly, it just turns out less successful than expected.

But yeah, I love weird and cool fundraising ideas. This is a good one.